7/27/2017

I guess congratulations are in order. Congratulations, Barack Obama. Your signature big-government achievement: ObamaCare — the biggest step towards socialized medicine in this country in over forty years — is now beyond challenge. We now know that it will never be repealed. And we have Republicans to thank for it.

And it’s being treated like just another news story. Well, it’s not. It’s the worst political betrayal in modern political history.

I’d like you to imagine something. Imagine you’re sitting at the breakfast table with your spouse, to whom you have been married for seven years. Your spouse says: “Honey, I have a couple of things to tell you. First, they ran out of milk at the store. Second, I slept with my co-worker last week. Now, about this milk situation…”

I think you might say something like this: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Forget the milk situation. What was that you said about breaking your most fundamental promise to me? The promise you have made to me for the last seven years? The one promise that was central to our life together?”

That’s not just another broken promise. For many people, that’s a dealbreaker.

If you open up your newspaper, or access your favorite blog or news site, you might not realize that we just experienced the worst political betrayal I can remember. Here’s a story about transgenders and the military. Oh, yeah, and also the Republicans voted not to repeal ObamaCare. Now, about those transgenders . . .

Whoa, whoa, whoa. The Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted against repealing ObamaCare? They just broke their most fundamental promise to voters? A promise they made for seven years? The most central promise of the entire party?

And we’re supposed to just let this one go?

No way. We want a divorce.

There are seven Senators who voted against the relatively clean 2015 repeal bill yesterday. You might also choose to blame the party as a whole, or Mitch McConnell. That’s up to you. But these seven Senators should be the primary targets (see what I did there?) of your wrath.

I am going to be very plain. The following people must be drummed out of public life.

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)

Shelley Moore Capito (W. Va.)

Susan Collins (Maine)

Dean Heller (Nev.)

John McCain (Ariz.)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Rob Portman (Ohio)

(John McCain, huh? So that’s what that speech was all about: justifying a vote against repeal. I told you the speech was disgraceful.)

It is useful to keep in mind that, with the sole exception of Collins, these senators voted for repeal in 2015, when it didn’t matter. Six senators of these seven — Alexander, Capito, Heller, McCain, Murkowski, and Portman — are not just leftists on this issue. They are also giant hypocrites. These six people are the real turncoats. They lied to their voters. They pretended to be for repeal, but they weren’t. They voted for “repeal” in 2015 only because they knew Barack Obama would veto it. And veto it he did.

The only thing that has changed since 2015 is that we now have a President who would sign that repeal bill. The nice side effect of Trump’s lack of interest in policy is that, although his heart really isn’t behind the 2015 repeal, he would sign it anyway, because a) he doesn’t care about policy details, and b) he just wants something he can call a win. We could have had that win, but for yesterday’s despicable votes by these Senators.

Now: here is when these people are up for re-election:

Lamar Alexander: 2020

Shelley Moore Capito: 2020

Susan Collins: 2020

Dean Heller: 2018

John McCain: 2022

Lisa Murkowski: 2022

Rob Portman: 2022

As you can see, the GOP chose mostly people who aren’t up for re-election until 2020 or beyond. (There are surely more than these seven who would have voted against the bill, if their no vote were necessary to defeat it.) But one of the traitors is coming up for re-election next year: Dean Heller.

He has to go. He must be primaried.

I will make it one of my major political missions in life to make sure this man is politically punished for this incredible betrayal.

I’ll keep you up to date with the progress of this effort as time goes on. It’s an important one.

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